Hepatoprotective, diuretic and anti-inflammatory activities of the water extract of Portulaca oleracea were studied. The extract showed 59.4% in s-GPT and 55. 8% in s-GOT compared with sylimarin against intoxication and 43.7% diuretic activity compared with furosemide in mice. It showed 61.8% anti-inflammatory activity compared with indomethacin against the carrageenan-induced inflammation in rats.

The main objective of this study was to characterize physico-chemical properties, sensory property and oxidative stability of safflower seed obtained by various roasting temperature and time. The contents of water soluble solids decreased in the higher roasting temperature and time. Sensory evaluation of safflower seed roasted in various conditions showed significant differences in taste, color, flavor and palatability. The safflower seed roasted at for 20min had the best palatability. At the change of Hunter's values, L values were decreased, and a, b and values were increased in the higher roasting temperature and time. The content of free sugars such as sucrose and raffinose were reduced significantly in higher roasting time of and . During the storage period after roasting treatment, peroxide values (POV) were highly increased after eight months at the all treatment except for . Therefore, it is inadequate over eight months after roasting treatment.

This study was conducted to improve the productivety of Ligusticum chuanxiong HORT. and Cnidium officinale MAKINO by establishing the effects of cultivating conditions. The highest weight of rhizome and root per plant was 36.5g at planting density. Fresh weight of underground parts per plant increased as weight of rhizome increased and it was the highest (67g) at while the lowest one(59g) was at . Fresh weight of underground parts per plant of C. officinale increased as weight of rhizome increased. It was significantly different (53-67g) among the treatments of planting density.

This study was conducted to improve the productivety of Ligusticum chuanxiong HORT. and Cnidium officinale MAKINO by establishing the effects of cultivating conditions. Growth characteristics of underground part of L. chuanxiong under the different mulching treatment showed the highest growth and yield in black vinyl mulching treatment. The highest dry weight of underground parts per plant in mulching treatment was 47.9g at white shading treatment while the lowest one was 16.5g at black shading treatment. Growth characteristics of underground parts C. officinale under the different mulching treatment were the higher in black vinyl mulching rather than in rice straw mulching and white vinyl mulching. Dry weight of underground parts per plant of C. officinale under the different shading treatments was the highest(37.8g) under the white shading while it was lowest(12. 2g) under the black shading.

This study was conducted to investigate the soil mulching effect on growth and yield of Atractylodes macrocephala Koidz. The number of stem, stem diameter, and fresh weight of aerial part in black poly-ethylene film and transparent poly-ethylene film mulched condition were higher than those of non-mulching and rice-straw mulching. Number of flowers were high in the order of non-mulching, rice-straw, trans-P. E. film, and black P. E. film. Yield of underground part was higher in mulching condition than that of non-mulching. Dry rhizome yield in black P. E. film mulching was significantly high to compare with the other treatments. There was lower disease incidence of Phytophthora blight in trans-P. E and black P. E. film compare with the other treatments but any difference was not observed in essential oil content of rhizome. Significant positive correlation was found between rhizome weight and fresh weight of aerial part. It was also shown that the fresh weight of aerial part was greatly dependent on the number of stems and stem diameter.

There was not noticeable differences in decreasing blood alcohol concentrations between Korea and China-produced Hovenia dulcis , showing only 1-2 % higher decreasing rate for Korea-produced seed extracts than those from China. It was also found that the blood alcohol decreasing ability was greatly enhanced by partitioning the crude extracts produced from both places. The both extracts (crude and partitioned) accelerated the reducing rate of blood alcohol concentrations down to 1-2 hours, compared to that of control (taking only ethanol). The crude extracts from imported seeds seemed to have slightly better effect on improving in vivo ADH and ALDH activities than domestic ones; however, not for partitioned extracts. It was interesting that the partitioned extracts from both countries enhanced ADH enzyme activity up to 60% than the crude, compared to the control, while ALDH activity was not much affected by the partitioned extracts. It was also confirmed that both ADH and ALDH activities were well balanced in controlling blood alcohol concentration maintaining 28-29% of enzyme activities in vivo. The extracts proved to have better effect on enhancing ALDH activity than ADH activity, which is one of possible explanation that Hovenia dulcis can effectively relieve the hangover by fast decreasing acetaldehyde concentration in the liver and blood. GST activity was also increased in the range of 120 to 300% by adding crude or partitioned extracts from both countries; however, there was no difference in enhancing GST activity between the extracts from two countries. The extracts showed competitive inhibition with GST activity, showing the reduction of enzyme activity at higher than 0. 6 (g/L) of the imported extracts.

There are two cultivars, 'Jeongsun' and 'Mishima' of Bupleurum falcatum L., a medicinal plant, have been cultivated in Korea. Two cultivars were evaluated and compared in details for major growth characters and their seasonal changes. Jeongsun was higher in stem length and root weight per plant, and earlier in maturity than Mishima, while Mishima was higher in top weight per plant and the ratio of outer phloem layer(OPL) to whole root, and more in branch number. Coefficients of variations of most growth characters were higher in Mishima than in Jeongsun. In relationship between root and shoot growth characters, root weight, root diameter, etc. were positively correlated with stem thickness, top weight, branch number, etc. in both cultivars. In comparison of seasonal changes for growth characters between two cultivars, stem length and node number were almost not increased after September, but root length and branch number tended to increase until November. There were continuous increases of top and root weights in both cultivars after September. Increase rates of top and root weights were higher in Mishima and Jeongsun, respectively. The weight ratio of root part to whole plant in Jeongsun and the ratio of OPL to whole root in Mishima were higher during whole growth stages; especially Mishima showed their continuous increases after October. Jeongsun flowered earlier (August 17) than Mishima (September 16) by one month. Complete flowering date was on August 30 in Jeongsun and on September 30 in Mishima. Basic difference in plant growth between two cultivars was maturity, so shoot growth almost stopped after October in Jeongsun, and continued vegetative growth until November in Mishima with late flowering habit. These results indicate that higher root weight in Jeongsun is due to its earlier flowering character leading to relatively longer time for root growth, as compared with Mishima.

Analysis of random amplified polymorphic DNAs(RAPDs) and internal morphological features were performed using three species of medicinal plants in the genus of Angelica(A. gigas Nakai, A. sinensis(Oliv.) Diels., A. acutiloba Kitagawa) to distinguish between these three species. Fifty decarmer oligonucleotide primers were screened for the RAPDs of the herbal plant species. Five primers generated distinct RAPD markers specific to the species of Angelica, In analysis of the degree of similarity, A. sinensis(Oliv.) Diels is more closely related to A. acutiloba Kitagawa than to A. gigas Nakai. Furthermore, we proved the usefulness of RAPD analysis for the discrimination of the species using dry roots and commercial plant materials. In internal morphology of three species, A. sinensis(Oliv.) Diels seemed to be more specialized in systemic than A. acutiloba Kitagawa and A. gigas Nakai

Hairy root cultures of Rheum undulatum L. induced by a co-culture with Agrobacterium rhizogenes ATCC15834 were established and the production of tannin in hairy roots was investigated. The growth of hairy roots was maximized in WPM liquid medium supplemented with 2 mg/L IAA, and 3% sucrose (pH 5.7). The highest yields of tannin were obtained from WPM medium containing 0.5 mg/L ABA, and 5% sucrose (pH 5.5). The growth and tannin production in hairy root cultures were influenced by the addition of elicitors to the medium. The addition of 50 mg/L chitosan enhanced the production of tannin with about 1.7 fold.

This study was carried out to investigate the effect of soaking time of seed disinfectant, Fludioxonil on the germination and disease occurrence of adlay (Coix lacryma-jobi L. var. ma-yuen Stapf). The germination rate was higher in the seed disinfectant treatment for 3 days followed by seed soaking for 3 days than that of other treatments under controlled condition of low temperature. The value of two experiments were 90.8%, 96.7%, repectively. And, the time of seed soaking was longer, the more seed rot was proportionly decreased. In the pot and field experiment, germination rates were somewhat low compared to that of petri dish experiment as 88.3%, 84.3%, and occurence of seedling blight showed similar results that of petri dish experiments. There was not significantly different in the yield components among treatments in the field. However, as compared with untreated plot (194kg/10a), unhulled grain yield was increased about 26% on that treatment. Based on these results, it has been thought that improvement of the germonation rate and decrease of disease occurrence of adlay were accompanied with the seed disinfectant during 3 days followed by seed soaking during 3 days before sowing.

The optimal conditions of PCR components for the random amplification of genomic DNA were in template DNAs, 250 mM in dNTP, 10 pM in primer in Taq DNA polymerase respectively with the annealing temperature at , respectively. Twelve local lines were divided into 3 groups by the coefficients of 107 polymophic bands by Jaccard and Nei. The coefficients value of group I including Chongup # 1, Seochon # 1, Andong # 1, Chinan # 1, and Danyang # 1 ranged from 0.27 to 0.05 and those of group II including Suwon # 2, Chunchon # 1, Japan # 3, Danyang#2 and (Variety Jihwang Seohchon) ranged from 0.29 to 0.11. While, Jihwang 1 originated from China and Japan # 1 in group III showed a distant genetic relationship to Korean local lines.

Physico-chemical characteristics and chemical composition of seed oil of Sapium japonicum were determined by various analysis methods. Physio-chemical characteristics of the extracted oil from fresh seed were specific gravity (0.928), refraction index (1.477), acid value (2.30), saponification number (190.0), and iodine value (126.0). Neutral lipid (93%) in seed oil was identified as major components, followed by glycolipid (4.9%) and phospholipid (1.3%). In GC analysis, nine fatty acids were presented in the seed oil. Among fatty acids, predominant fatty acids were oleic acid (45.8%) and linoleic acid (35.6%). The contents of fatty acids of seed oil somewhat varied with their storage period. Composition of fatty acids from lipid fractions which were isolated on silica open column was investigated. Major fatty acids in three lipid fractions were linoleic acid and linolenic acid. The fatty acid contents of fresh seed oil derived from each lipid fraction were generally high comapred to storage seed oil. From the above results, seed oil of Sapium Japonicum could be useful in cosmetics, detergents and a few pharmaceuticals.

This study was to determine optimal sizeof root top using Suwon 2 selected from the Jinbu local population though pure line selection and five root head diameters of . Emergence rate, characteristics of top, and root were increased with increasing diameterof seedling root. In the group of root head diameter from 0.51cm to 0.70cm, bolting rate was the lowest being less than 3.3% and root yield was the highest being more than 300kg/l0a. Bolting rate was positively correlated with plant height while showed negatively correlated with root yield. The study showed that the optimum of root head diameter raised seedlings in the open field appeared to be from 0.31 to 0.70cm.